


Focus

by strawberryklance



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Keith (Voltron) Has BPD, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Team as Family, but its mentioned, can be taken as purely platonic really, it's not really talked about, the relationship between keith and shiro is brotherly! no sh//aladins please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 23:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10729359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryklance/pseuds/strawberryklance
Summary: Keith teaches Lance to focus on breathing, Lance teaches Keith to focus on family.





	Focus

**Author's Note:**

> just so you know, I have BPD myself!

Keith's boots make too much noise in the silence of the castle. He hates the sound of himself walking along the hallways at night time, his shoes piercing through the silence, almost unnerving. It doesn't sound like him.

The planet the team has landed on is full of nothing, covered in grass that doesn't quite feel like grass, and tiny creatures that don't really resemble anything seen on Earth. The planet orbits around a Sun, way too close really. It's not like the heat is putting them in danger, though – the castle can protect them from it. Besides, they're only staying to rest, and in the morning they'll get moving again. It's an endless cycle of wormholing, staying, then going through another wormhole, all the while making plans to save Shiro. Keith wants to speed things up, as usual, and he knows it's annoying the other team members. He's just never been good at sitting still.

He has not talked to his friends after this evening, when he failed to contain his anger, and blew up at them during a meeting. He said bad things – ones he's currently regretting while looking out the big window at the observation deck –, accused them of not caring about Shiro. He left quickly after that, locking himself in his room for the rest of the night. He should have apologized before the others went to bed; he's only making things more difficult.

Keith remembers the looks on their faces when he yelled, how Pidge stepped forward with angry tears in her eyes. He remembers Hunk's shocked expression, Allura's scowl, Coran's disappointed sigh. And Lance, how he looked away, arms crossed and face in a frown. Keith feels a twist in his stomach when he thinks about it. He wants nothing more than to crawl back to all of them and beg for forgiveness.

Too bad he's never been too good at apologies.

He sits down on the hard floor, crossing his legs. Before the Kerberos mission Shiro would always make Keith meditate, do the whole lotus position thing, straighten his back. Shiro always knew Keith had problems controlling his emotions, Keith never had to tell him. There was never that awkward phase were Keith didn't know whether he should explain his BPD to him or not – it was always just out there that Keith was unstable. Shiro didn't need that label to understand it, he just did. And that's why Keith felt so comfortable around him.

“You don't have to clear your mind,” Shiro said, sitting on the floor, opposite Keith. “The point is focusing on your breathing. You can just try focusing on a couple breaths, like this: in, out. In, out...See, that's not so hard. Just for a couple breaths. Doesn't have to be longer than that.”

“That's meditation?” Keith asked, his eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Yes! You can't turn off your brain, but you  _ can _ focus on your breathing and let your thoughts pass through instead of mulling them over.”

“Huh.”

That's how Keith ends up breathing in and out in a steady rhythm. He closes his eyes, imagines Shiro sitting next to him, breathing along. He imagines that nothing is bothering him, and he can almost believe it.

Then he hears the unmistakable whoosh of a door and the sound of footsteps. He whips around to see the person, hand automatically reaching for the knife tucked into his belt.

“Sorry,” Lance says quietly, hands going up in defense.

“Oh,” Keith says. “It's – it's okay.”

Lance walks over wordlessly, and Keith knows he wasn't expecting to have company when he came in. Keith feels kind of bad about it, considering he should be at the training deck where he usually is, not surprising poor Lance who just wanted to come enjoy the view.

Lance doesn't say anything though. He leans against the wall sideways, face relaxed as he looks outside. Keith resumes his breathing, but keeps his eyes open this time, looking at the view spreading out ahead of them. It's not a bad looking planet, not at all. There's just something awfully unsettling about it, how it's completely different from Earth but also similar in some ways.

“Allura found something that might be useful to us,” Lance finally says. “Something that might help us with defeating Zarkon.  _ And _ getting Shiro back.”

Keith looks up with wide eyes. “What is it?”

“There's a group of travelers just...going around this one galaxy – I can't remember the name – recruiting soldiers and teaching people self-defense. They're lead by three people who all come from a planet called Si – Sindya, I think? Basically what they're doing is they're helping planets prepare for Galra attacks and at the same time building their own army so they can fight back. Allura thinks that if we find them, we could form an alliance and they could help us.”

“I – wow,” Keith breathes. He doesn't want to get his hopes up, of course not. But he knows that this group is definitely promising and could help them immensely. “Thank you for telling me, Lance.”

Lance nods, sighs, and sits down. “Listen, Keith...”

“I'm sorry,” Keith says before he can finish. “I'm sorry,” he repeats, quieter. “I know you guys care. I was just angry, and that's not anyone's fault. I'm sorry. I should have apologized earlier, too.”

When Keith turns to Lance, he sees the guy smiling softly. “I know. I mean, we all know – you and Shiro are essentially brothers, this is obviously different for you. We're all frustrated, but when it comes down to it, we get it. And we're doing our best, okay?”

Keith nods curtly, giving Lance a brief look before his eyes fix on the view again. The sun looks pink in the horizon, bigger and scarier than it ever looked on Earth. Keith straightens his back again and concentrates on breathing in and out four times.

It's quiet for a while until Lance looks at Keith. “Wait, are you in the lotus position? Holy shit, I didn't know you were flexible!”

Keith quirks a small smile. “It's not as much about flexibility as it is about doing it a lot.”

He hears a shuffle as Lance moves to sit right next to him. “So, what's this? Meditation? Or are you just really enthusiastic about good posture.”

“Meditation. Shiro taught me,” Keith says quietly. “It's to help control emotions.”

Lance doesn't say anything, but he copies Keith's position with slight difficulty. He can't get his feet quite as high on his thighs as Keith, but enough for them to stay in place. He straightens his back as well and lowers his hands down to his knees.

“The thing is to focus on breathing,” Keith says. “That's all you have to do. Breathe in, breathe out.”

“This is kind of relaxing if you ignore the physical pain,” Lance mumbles.

There's a badly contained snort from Keith. “It gets easier,” he says.

The two sit there for a few minutes, breathing in time with each other. It all feels so familiar, and Keith realizes that it really is better with another person there with you. It feels as if you're fighting against bad thoughts together, finding that peaceful place for even just a moment. The castle hums around them, providing them with a cool breeze to make them more comfortable in the planet's heat. The cold air pushes Keith's hair back slightly, reminding him that they're sitting almost directly under one of the 'vents' – well, it's not really a vent, it's a machine that provides them with breathable air and comfortable temperature depending on where they are.

“It's nice,” Lance says softly. “Meditating. We did this in school once, and the teacher kept telling me to just 'clear my head'. As if a thirteen-yea-old kid with ADHD could just suddenly clear his head.”

Keith smiles. “Shiro told me that it's enough to just think about breathing for a couple seconds. He said that trying to clear your head of thoughts and feelings is pointless, that it's only going to take up too much energy.”

“Shiro gives good advice,” Lance says.

“Mmhm. Don't usually listen to him as much as I should,” Keith says.

“Well, we can't all be rational like him.”

“Yeah.”

Lance takes a couple of deep breaths before he continues talking. “Do you think Shiro's also meditating right now?”

It manages to get a small laugh out of Keith. “Maybe,” he says, chuckling a little. “That's totally a Shiro thing to do. Meditate in space prison.”

Lance grins. “You even called it space prison! See, it's way more fun if you add 'space' in front of it!”

“I don't think there's anything fun about prison, Lance, even if it is a space prison,” Keith says. He's smiling though, eyes rolling in amusement. His posture has relaxed a little without him even noticing.

“Maybe. Ooh, how about space meditation?”

“That's slightly better.”

“Can we invent our own type of meditation called Space Meditation?”

Keith remembers to straighten his back. He closes his eyes, too, but the amused smile on his face doesn't fade. “You're ridiculous.”

“This is totally a good idea. When we get back to Earth, this is what we're doing. Space is cool these days, we just have to somehow mix that with meditation and  _ bam _ , we're rich.”

“What was the bam?”

“That was us getting rich.”

“It didn't sound good.”

“Listen --”

“And your idea is faulty,” Keith cracks an eye open to glance at his friend. “When we get back to Earth, you're going back to your family. I don't fit into that.”

He didn't mean to sound so self-pitying, really, and he doesn't even realize it until he sees Lance's face fall.

“What do you mean, you don't fit into it?”

Keith sighs. “Nothing, just – you're all going back to your families. You'll want to spend time with them – and I get that. It just means that things will go back to how they were..I'll be in contact with Shiro, but that's it.”

“You really think that we'd cut off all contact after fighting an intergalactic war together?” Lance says quietly.

“Not  _ all _ contact, just...most of it, I guess.”

“Do you want that?”

“Of course not, I just --”

“Then it's not happening,” Lance says, straightening his legs out and moving to sit in front of Keith. “Listen, we need each other, and we'll need each other just as much when this is all over. No one is going to understand our experiences, I don't know how much we'll even be able to tell – it would suck if we all went different ways and rarely spoke to each other again. None of us want that.”

The thought of his teammates wanting to see him even after the war is astounding to Keith – he doesn't think it's even crossed his mind once.

“And look, Hunk and I were talking about this the other day,” Lance continues, eyes bright. “And we were thinking...what if we all just saved up some money and got an apartment together? All of us. And assuming that we get Matt back, which I'm sure we will, he could come too.”

It's an absurd idea, and Keith knows that, but when Lance is sitting in front of him with that look on his face, all he can think about is how much he wants that. A place with his friends. A safe place. To feel all that love around him every day  _ without _ the stress of war pushing down on everyone's shoulders? It sounds like paradise.

“We'd make road trips to see our families every once in a while. We'd decorate our rooms with our paladin colors because we're cheesy like that...and of course we'd still keep in touch with Allura and Coran! They'd come down to see us on their castle ship and land on a huge field close by and take us on rides. We'd show them cool Earth stuff that Coran would go  _ nuts _ about.”

“Lance...”

“So yeah, Keith, you do fit in. We need you.”

Keith smiles shyly. “I don't know if they still think that after this evening.”

“Of course they do. We all love you, you know that? You lashed out, that happens. I guarantee you that when you apologize, the others will forgive you just like I did. We know you're under a lot of pressure and everything feels too slow for you, we understand that. No one's going to stay mad at you.”

“Thank you, Lance. Thank you,” Keith breathes out, chest tight with emotion as he tries to process what Lance just said. None of his teammates except for Shiro have told him that they love him, but he guesses it makes sense anyway. He loves them, at least.

“Anytime, Keith,” Lance says. “Just – focus on that, on us. Because none of us are alone here, and none of us will be.”

From that moment onwards, Keith meditates to the thought of his family. With every breath he names one of his friends, and with every breath he reminds himself that this is his real family. These are the people he is meant to be with.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading this!   
> (i haven't written properly for a long time, so it's probably not that great and i'm sure there are mistakes as well. let me know if you see them)


End file.
